Who Does This Vagrant Think He is?!

Saturday 11-22-2014  (Santiago del Estero)     Matt 11-13  

S.  Matt 11:27  "My Father has given me authority over everything. No one really knows the Son except the Father, and no one really knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."  NLT

O.  Jesus says stuff that no other would dare to say.  He is always coming up with one of these outrageous claims.  In the ears of the Jewish leaders they spelled blasphemy.

“Who does this vagrant peasant think He is anyway?  He’s pretending to be God, Himself!  Were you there the other day when He told a sick man, ‘Your sins are forgiven!?’  I heard Him with my own ears.  Just like that, wham! and a rotten sinner is off the hook!  Hey, even Jehovah God can’t do that!  Preposterous!  You’ve got to slay a lamb to get forgiveness of sins.  Everybody knows that. 

“Now listen to this: He calls our wonderful Jehovah God His ‘Father’ and refers to Himself as ‘the Son’.  Did you get that?  Not ‘a son,’ but ‘the Son!’ And poor, innocent people swarm to Him like flies on a carcass!  We’re going to have to put a stop to this!  I just wish He would quit doing all those miracles.  Simple, uneducated people are so gullible. They witness a few blind men now running around screaming, ‘I can see! I can see!’ and a few paralytics dancing around carrying their cots on their shoulders and ‘wham!’ just like that they shout ‘Hosanna! Hosanna! Make room!  Our Messiah King is coming down the road!’

But we, who are better informed, know better.  Why, it took me years to get this doctorate in Jewish theology. We have studied the law and the prophets and hundreds of additional traditions. We know stuff!  Just ask us.  We’ll tell you.  Want to hear a real exquisite prayer?  I can produce one that’ll make your ears tingle… by memory.  

A lot of those people following that Jesus guy aren’t even religious.  He attracts the worst elements of society.  He befriends the nastiest kinds of sinners.  You can tell a man by taking a good look at his friends.”

Stop!  Please stop the tape!  I’ve heard enough from this Doctor Whoever.  Reel back to those words of Jesus.  He is telling us that He can choose to unveil His Heavenly Father for us.  Does this mean that He can show us God the Father?!... the Creator of the galaxies of the heavens?  That’s deep!  That’s almost scary!  Jesus talks about His Father as though He is right there… not far away in the distant sky.

“Hey, Jesus, over here in the corner.  I’m Phil.  I don’t bug you much, but You talk a lot about Your Father… Just show us the Father and we will be satisfied.”  John 14:8  Then it falls like a bomb from the sky, "Philip, don't you even yet know who I am, even after all the time I have been with you? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father!”  John 14:9 NLT  

That statement would make any unbelieving Jewish high priest tear his robes and scream, “Heresy!” 

 A. Got any ideas why they killed Jesus?  It was obviously because of Who He claimed to be.  Some people say He was a great teacher on the level with Buddha and other religious leaders. The Jehovah Witnesses claim He was a created angel. The Mormons claim He was a god.  But He claimed to be the One and only Son of the Living God!  That claim drove the nails into his hands and feet. 

There was just one little detail that the Jewish leaders overlooked.  He really was all that He claimed to be!  

P.  Oh Jesus, Son of the living God, show me the Father, too.  Open my blind eyes to see the Father in You. You are His personal Revelation.  When I look at Your face, I see the Father.  When I see you caressing the hair of a little child I see the Father.  When I see you stooping to dirty the finger of God writing in the sand to set free an adulteress, I can see the Father.  When You pour out Your treasures to a lady named Mary who sat at Your feet, I see the Father.  When You stand there speechless before a Roman governor with a royal robe cast scatty-wampus over Your shoulders, hands tied behind Your back and a crown of thorns on Your head… I see the Father.  And His amazing beauty leaves me speechless.  Amen.